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Category Archives: Ecology

Peanut Time at the Critter Ranch

By Gene Wilburn

It’s early August here in Port Credit and the summer heat is setting in, along with thunderstorms and threats thereof. All in all it’s not the scorcher we usually get, at least not yet. At this time of year I notice a distinct seasonal change in the critters that inhabit, or visit, our back yard.

Several of the avian species are done nesting and some of them are priming for their migratory trip south. For the past week or so the grackles and redwings have begun flocking together, combing the ground for the birdseed I scatter along the back fence. These two species frequently intermingle at the bird bath where they indulge in group drinking and bathing.

The house sparrows, always cheeky and chirpy, like group bathing as well, and are responsible for splashing out most of the bird bath water by the end of day. A pair of catbirds sneak in for drinks occasionally, and the year-round residents, the blue jays, cardinals, chickadees, woodpeckers, nuthatches, and goldfinches put in regular appearances. The squirrels drink from it and even the chipmunks manage to jump high enough to reach the top and sip a drink.

Perhaps it’s the critters’ inner timing and they know the summer is coming to an end. They’re all voracious, and go into an eating frenzy when I toss out peanuts. As the peanuts cascade onto the ground sounding like miniature maracas, the squirrels come down from the higher branches and the chippies come from all directions, guided by the sound.

The squirrels and chippies are always eager peanut eaters but I was surprised that the grackles and redwings are too. The cardinal pair is more dainty. They take a single peanut and fly somewhere where they can break it into small pieces and dine on those, Timbit style. The blue jays fly into the branches over my head and squawk a bit if I’m going too slow. They then swoop in to take two or three, sometimes four, peanuts. They prefer to take them off the back deck and delight in taking them out of the planter baskets where I always stash a few for the squirrels and chippies to find. But they leave behind a lot of easy pickins. They’re not as greedy as the grackles.

The squirrels get their share, though they are at a partial disadvantage in the ensuing free-for-all. They stop to eat theirs until they’re sated, then they carry off a few to bury and hide. But they have to contend with the chipmunks who hoover their way through the melee, stuffing three peanuts at a time into their cheek pouches. They whiz off to their burrows, stash them, then come back for more, in a flash. Chippies are A-type personalities when it comes to their favourite foods.

Algonquin Park this ain’t, but for an old codger living in the suburbs of the Greater Toronto Area, this daily feeding and watering of the critters, many of whom have become very friendly toward me, puts a smile on my face. There are few things more terminally cute than a chipmunk eager for a peanut fix.

On My 72nd Year: My Ten Fundamental Beliefs

By Gene Wilburn

“I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in” ~ Kenny Rogers

Every year around birthday time (June 10 for me), I like to take stock of what I believe in. Where do I fit with the cosmos? What are my bedrock, fundamental assumptions? This year’s thinking mirrors very closely what I’ve thought for several years, but age has perhaps lent them more clarity.

Let’s start at the beginning. As Terry Pratchett once wrote, “In the beginning, there was nothing, which exploded.” For each of us our cosmology starts somewhere, and for me it starts with the Big Bang, which I’m told was not really so much an explosion as an expansion — a very dramatic expansion in which a primordial soup of plasma emerged that was so hot not even atoms could form. As it expanded it created space and time. The universe was born. About 13.7 billion years ago, if our measurements are correct.

If it helps you to believe that this was a result of God breathing across the waters, so be it — we each have our favourite narratives. The question of how something can come of nothing is a profound one, and physicists have some thoughts about this: that there really is nothing such as nothing. Particles and antiparticles evidently come into and out of existence billions of times per second and usually annihilate one another, but, at least once, it is possible that particles accumulated faster than antiparticles forming a singularity and, well, boom!

So, that’s belief number one:the universe came into existence. This had implications. Chemistry was born. Eventually particles changed into quarks as the plasma cooled, and later, hydrogen atoms formed. Concentrate enough hydrogen atoms together and what do you get? Fusion. The birth of stars. Then, over time, some stars die in a spectacular explosion called a supernova in which most of the rest of the naturally-occurring chemical elements are created, spewn forth as stellar dust and ice. As these clouds of stellar material concentrate and condense, new stars form, with planets around them. One of these we call the sun, and the planet we live on, which we call earth, formed about 4.5 billion years ago, give or take a million or two.

Which brings me to belief number two:Out of inorganic matter, life began. How is still unsolved, but researchers are exploring the tantalizing possibilities of RNA and other life-critical molecules developing in places like deep-sea vents and evolving into a self-replicating thing that we might call first life, or even protolife — ancestors to the prokaryotes, or single-celled organisms without a nucleus, like bacteria and archaea. Somewhere along the line a bit of luck (for us) happened: two prokaryotes combined to form nucleated cells, which we name as eukaryotes.

Which brings me to belief number three:life evolved. Over great periods of time, eukaryotes developed along plant and animal lines, oxygenating the atmosphere, and eventually some pioneering life forms ventured from the oceans to the lands to colonize the barren geology of earth, turning it into large organic ecosystems.

Belief number four is that, for the most part, the universe is random. It is not willed, or fated, or progressive, though randomness can lead to increased complexities. Using some basic structural parts, nature evolved through random genetic changes into extraordinarily rich organic landscapes and seascapes, filled with the plants and animals of its day. The PreCambrian Explosion, various extinctions, and random events, such as comets crashing into the earth, diverted the path of life several times, until, after eons, the great age of reptiles was over and land mammals had the chance to fill the empty ecological niches.

Belief number five is that the emergence of human beings, in the form of Homo sapiens, was not preordained. We’re a branch of primates that evolved in particular ways to adjust to our environment and we had cousin species, Neanderthals, Denisovans, etc., who did the same. We’ve only been on the planet a short while, in geological terms, but we’ve become a new force. After nearly perishing from extinction ourselves, we made it, and we developed a complex brain that would allow us to discover agriculture, mathematics, and art. Not to mention learning how to sew reindeer hide into warm clothing for the Arctic.

Belief number six is that we originated in and emigrated from Africa. Down deep, we’re all Africans and, living in a very warm climate, we were all probably dark skinned because extra melanin in the skin protects against overpowering UV radiation. Those of us who migrated to colder climates lost some of our melanin because whiter skin helps absorb the sun’s rays better in colder conditions and not as much protection against UV radiation is required.

Belief number seven is that we developed into a language-oriented species that loves narratives. We acquired strong imaginations to accompany the impressive encyclopedic knowledge of our environment we learned through hunting and gathering. Tales around the campfire, stories of our ancestors, legends, myths, and, of course, gods. We’re a species that wants to participate in its own narrative, even if that narrative is unreliable.

Belief number eight is that this narrative of human history is important to study in all its facets, including science, the humanities, and the arts and music. Physically, humans haven’t evolved much in the past 100,000 years or so, but mentally we’ve evolved through many great civilizations in ways that are fascinating and that contributed to our rise as a species.

Belief number nine is that, mentally, we went through our ‘teen’ years between Galileo and Einstein. We began to mature toward mental adulthood by rigorously questioning, observing, measuring, and testing our premises. We bent the planet to our wants and needs with an industrial and scientific revolution.

Belief number ten is that we’ve reached, borrowing from an Arthur C. Clarke title, Childhood’s End. We now possess the ability to destroy the planet for mankind, as well as other species. As adults we must learn to be stewards of our planet and treat it with respect.

I realize I’ve said little about the human condition itself. That is left to explore and think about in the context of the first ten beliefs, but I suspect it will always remain a personal, and sometimes communal, journey for each of us. This is why I write essays — to see what I think about life. We are all part of the overall narrative of mankind and each of us expresses it in a personal way.

To be sure, if we reach mental adulthood intact, the greatest history of Homo sapiens could just be starting. As we look at our current state, we see automation trending ever forward, with artificial intelligence waiting in the wings. We may create a new kind of life form. We may, if wise, develop eco-friendly attitudes about our home planet and change how we obtain energy and food. Our journey as mental adults has just begun. We may even prosper, as long as a random comet doesn’t smash into us again, and as long as we don’t self destruct. Fingers crossed, humankind!

Whatever Happened to Ecology?

By Gene Wilburn

Words have lifetimes — some very long, some short. Many words are elastic and stretch from their original meanings to wider application or a more specialized meaning. Some words define and encapsulate eras. Think of disco and discotheque. Or flapper and Charleston. Eras gone by, and the only remaining life the words have is to give reference to the pop music of a different time. Another such word that comes to mind, from my earlier years, is ecumenical.

Ecumenical is a fancy word, imported in the late 16th century from Latin which in turn imported it from Greek and meaning, for the most part, “promoting or relating to unity among the world’s Christian churches” in the sense of “belonging to the universal Church.” The original Greek meaning appears to be something like “the (inhabited) earth,” meaning principally the Roman Empire.

The word came to renewed prominence in the mid–1960s and was especially popular on university campuses in the U.S. There were several ecumenical services that I and many others attended to see the ways the various branches of Christianity worshipped. It was the era of Pope John, folk masses, and Methodists, Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians, and Baptists getting together for pot-luck gatherings — perhaps the last such era of its kind before the echo of the Civil Rights marches and the ever-present war in Vietnam opened the rift that has continued to split the US into two separate, superimposed countries. Goodwill became less fashionable. Nixon was elected President. Goodbye ecumenical. Ceremonies of innocence were drowned.

It was around this time that many young people left the organized churches to find more contemporary ways of exploring their relationships to the universe. Transformations were in the wind — the times they were a-changing’. It rang through in the music, poetry, novels, hairstyles, and lifestyles of the young in what Mexican poet Octavio Paz called “an explosion of the spirit.” Its symbols were seen in peace signs, painted VW vans, concert posters, flowing hair, headbands, dance, and underground newspapers. Marijuana became the new communal sacrament, and LSD, mescaline, peyote, and magic mushrooms were portals to new kinds of perception. It was a heady time, unsustainable of course, and as with all things, tragic for some, but it was also a pretty time that, if experienced, can never be forgotten. Ah, the sunsets… but I digress…

It was in this time period that I first encountered the word ecology. The word, according to the Oxford English Dictionary first entered the language around 1875, in the original, scientific meaning of the term, “The branch of biology that deals with the relationships between living organisms and their environment.” The word grew gradually beyond its more limited definition to a broader sociological definition: “The study of the relationships between people, social groups, and their environment; (also) the system of such relationships in an area of human settlement. Freq. with modifying word, as cultural ecology, social ecology, urban ecology.”

In the late 60s and early 70s it took on a more political flavour, meaning “The study of or concern for the effect of human activity on the environment; advocacy of restrictions on industrial and agricultural development as a political movement; (also) a political movement dedicated to this.” By this time ecology had become a buzzword and was frequently featured in such archives of the time as the Whole Earth Catalog, along with geodestic domes.

Ecology wasn’t a new concept — the interrelationship of organisms and their surroundings had been known for centuries — but the word gave clarity and weight to the concept, and in the world of DDT, Agent Orange, inappropriate dams, and urban sprawl, it began to take on an urgency as we learned of more species going extinct due to the clearing or altering of habitats and the encroachment of people.

Yet oddly, it’s a word I only hear now occasionally. One of the natural extensions of ecology is climate change. As the ecological and other studies added up, it became obvious to just about everyone in the world, except for a strange cadre of U.S. Republicans who have, for inscrutable political reasons, chosen to turn their backs on science and knowledge, that Earth, our very planet itself, is headed for a change that will not be good for the human species, much less the rest of the planet’s ecological systems.

Yet the word ecology is getting a new boost in usage, this time for the bacterial communities of our stomachs and intestines. Evidently we, and the bacteria in our bodies, co-evolved to make mammalian life, as we know it, possible. Our insides are literally crawling with them. The good ones help us digest food and contribute to our health. Whatever else our existence means, it is a life that, biologically, is only achieved by committee. Every “I” is literally a “we.” I’m glad to be seeing the word in use again because I always felt, in my gut, that ecology would make something of a comeback.

At a more abstract level, there is an ecology of the mind. The more you learn, ponder, and read, the more complex your mental landscape becomes and the more scope you have for ideas, counter-ideas, imagination, and insights. Who you read — which thinkers you have chosen to help guide you along the neuronal highways and byways of the brain — creates the type of mental ecosystem you live in, and determines whether it’s a rich, varied, healthy ecosystem, or a more limited ecosystem with poor mental soil. So, as the acolyte said to Indy, “Choose wisely.”